Public worship was now everywhere restored in its ancient forms. The most flourishing and populous districts of the empire exhibited to those who travelled through them nothing but heaps of dead bodies and smoking ruins. Fifty thousand men had perished, and the people lost nearly everywhere the little liberty they had hitherto enjoyed. Such was the horrible termination of this revolt in the south of Germany. But the evil was not confined to the south and west of Germany. Munzer, after having traversed a part of Switzerland, Alsace, and Swabia, had again directed his steps toward Saxony. A few citizens of Muelhausen, in Thuringia, had invited him to their city and elected him their pastor. The town council having resisted, Munzer deposed it and nominated another, consisting of his friends, with himself at their head. Full of contempt for that Christ, "sweet as honey," whom Luther preached, and being resolved to employ the most energetic measures, he exclaimed, "Like Joshua, we must put all the Canaanites to the sword." He established a community of goods and pillaged the convents. "Munzer," wrote Luther to Ansdorff on the 11th of April, 1525, "Munzer is not only pastor, but king and emperor of Muelhausen." The poor no longer worked; if anyone needed corn or cloth, he went and demanded it of some rich man; if the latter refused, the poor man took it by force; if the owner resisted, he was hanged. As Muelhausen was an independent city, Munzer was able to exercise his power for nearly a year without opposition. The revolt in the south of Germany led him to imagine that it was time to extend his new kingdom. He had a number of heavy guns cast in the Franciscan convent, and endeavored to raise the peasantry and miners of Mansfeld. "How long will you sleep?" said he to them in a fanatical proclamation: "Arise and fight the battle of the Lord! The time is come. France, Germany, and Italy are moving. On, on, on! (_Dran, Dran, Dran!_) Heed not the groans of the impious ones. They will implore you like children, but be pitiless. _Dran, Dran, Dran!_ The fire is burning: let your sword be ever warm with blood. _Dran, Dran, Dran!_ Work while it is yet day." The letter was signed, "Munzer, servant of God against the wicked." The country people, thirsting for plunder, flocked round his standard. Throughout all the districts of Mansfeld, of Stolberg, and Schwarzburg in Hesse, and the duchy of Brunswick the peasantry rose in insurrection. The convents of Michelstein, Ilsenburg, Walkenfied, Rossleben, and many others in the neighborhood of the Hartz, or in the plains of Thuringia, were devastated. At Reinhardsbrunn, which Luther had visited, the tombs of the ancient landgraves were profaned and the library destroyed.